Shag Carpet and a Clown Painting
by SixpennyBook
Summary: One-shot picking up Jim and Pam's conversation immediately after "Frame Toby" left off. What doe Pam really think of the house, and what surprise does Jim have up his sleeve? Please read and enjoy!


Note: I do not own The Office or either of these characters, though if anyone knows a real-life Jim Halpert, please let me know.

Also, this is my first fanfiction, and I wrote this in about an hour and a half, so go easy on me. Enjoy!

* * *

"I love it.

"You do?"

She loved it. Jim couldn't believe it. After he had bought the house, he had been so excited, but became more and more nervous as the time to tell her approached. I mean, the house needed work, he knew that, and not telling her had been a stupid move, he could admit that, and then his stomach was in knots as he gave her the tour and he couldn't tell what she was thinking but now…

"Yeah, I love it."

"Really?" Jim was really hearing this, right? He was pretty sure he had passed out or hit his head or something, because this could not be happening.

Btu then Pam looked up at him with tears in her eyes and that smile and love directed at him that was enough to make him dizzy and he knew that all this was really happening and he felt a flood of love and relief and happiness and a thousand other emotions as he and Pam began to walk towards each other.

"I mean, you bought me a house!"

"Oh my god."

"You bought me a HOUSE!"

Jim chuckled softly. "Yeah, I did." And he kissed Pam for the first time in their home, and even though it was short, it felt like the start of something new, and exciting, and wonderful.

"Um, do we have to sleep in your parents bedroom?" Pam said, ending the brief moment but still in his arms.

"No. No, we'll just board that up, and it'll be that weird spare room that people ask us about."

"And the clown?"

"Yeah… I can't really move him," he said and engulfed her in his arms.

"That's okay… we'll just put some of my artwork up their instead. Which I can make in my new studio…" Pam pulled back from Jim to take another look around, in awe. Yes, right now it was just a garage with some of her work pinned up, but some of these she hadn't seen in months. But Jim kept them, and loved them, because she made them, and that touched her more than she could ever tell him.

"I know it doesn't look like much now, but once I get my end-of-year bonus, I know a contractor who can help us fix it up, make where the garage door is now into a real wall with windows, and we can get a real floor and better lighting and frames and we can have a real studio for you."

"It's perfect, Jim," Pam breathed, then got quiet as she slowly turned around, imagining the possibilities in the space and the memories to be made… She could almost see a little girl drawing with crayons on the floor as she painted at the easel, and the red paint stain on the not-yet-there carpet from when their little boy got into her art supplies…

Jim watched her, entranced, and wished he could read her mind, see what she was thinking… And though he didn't want to disturb her reverie, he needed to know something, he needed to ask just one more thing, he needed to be certain…

"You mean it? I mean, you like it? Even with the shag carpet and the fake wood paneling and the god-awful clown picture? You're sure?"

Pam, shaking her head as she was pulled out of her trance, said, "God, Halpert, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to talk me out of liking it. Didn't you hear what I said?"

"I did… it's just…" Jim sighed and shook his head as if trying to get his thoughts to right themselves so he could form a coherent sentence. "You know, all that stuff you said at the office about New York, and how much you loved it, and how much you experienced there that you never could in Scranton. I don't want to be the one to hold you back from that."

"Jim, I thought we'd moved past this. I didn't come home for you, okay? I mean, not just for you. Of course you had _something_ to do with it. I love you. But not as much as I loved the city, I love Scranton too, and Dunder Mifflin, and sometimes even Michael and Dwight.

"We can go to New York on weekends, we can go to the Grand Canyon, we can go see the Pacific Ocean, we can have whatever adventures we want and then come back to this house, even if it still has the shag and Bobo the clown, as long as we're _together_."

She emphasized that by pointing to him then her so he got the point.

"Pam…"

"No, Jim," she said, as forcefully as he'd ever heard her, like when she addressed him at the beach. "I need you to listen. I know when I was with Roy, sometimes I didn't make the best decisions for myself. I sabotaged my won happiness. But that is not what I'm doing now. _I_ chose to move back to Scranton, _I_ chose to be your fiancée, I know what is best for me. You have to trust me on that."

"I do," he said clearly but quietly, looking into her eyes. "I love you, you know that? And I promise, I will trust you, I just needed… I just can't believe how lucky I am, that you really chose me, you know? I doubt myself…"

She had moved closer to him and she put her hand on his cheek. "It's okay, Jim, I know. And I love you too. Even if you are a doofus," she said with a smile.

Jim reached up and put his hand over hers with a smile. "I'm glad you said that, Pam, because I saved the best for last…" And with that, he took hold of her hand, moved it off his cheek and began to pull her towards the door that led from the garage to the back yard.

"What, Jim? Is there another clown painting hiding somewhere?" she teased.

He chuckled, and Pam was happy to see he was okay, they were okay. He didn't give either of them enough credit sometimes. But what exactly did he have up his sleeve?

"No, this is much better than a clown…" He creaked open the door and stepped through and down a couple old brick steps, his arm sweeping to show her the yard. "Tada!"

There was an old grill to the right side of the steps, and Jim stood to the left, and the rest of the yard was slightly overgrown grass and two big trees and one smaller tree. One of the trees sat to the right, just outside the border of a rectangle that had been marked out by wooden stakes, and there were some squiggly red and orange spray-painted lines, but she had no idea what she was supposed to be seeing.

"Umm… I don't understand."

Jim just smiled up at her with that big goofy grin of his that spread from ear to ear.

"…Jim?" Still, he said nothing. "What is it? Tell me! The suspense is killing me!"

He took a deep breath and let it out, steadying himself before he continued.

"Okay, now, stay with me, Pam. You know a few years ago, we talked about our dreams from when we were kids… We weren't together, then, of course, but we were just talking about what we had wanted to be when we grew up… who we had thought we'd marry… what we had wanted our houses would look like…"

She nodded slowly… she did remember the conversation. It had start after Jan had led that women in the workplace thing, and all the women in the office had all talked about their childhood fantasies, and she and Jim talked about it later and ended up discussing the same thing. What exactly had she talked about, again? She thought back…

Suddenly, realization hit. Her eyes widened and again got watery and a smile began to form on her face almost as big as the one on Jim's. "Oh… my… god…" she said breathlessly.

Jim continued after he knew Pam was on the same page, "Well, I thought this spot off your art studio would make a perfect place… for your terrace."

Pam opened her mouth, but was speechless for a few seconds. Then, she jumped from the garage into Jim's arms and screamed, "OH MY GOD, JIM!"

He spun her around in his arms, then looked up at her. "So you like the idea, then?" he whispered into her ear.

She leaned down and into one kiss tried to pour all her love and gratitude and passion and every other feeling she felt for this man who loved her enough to buy her a house and knew her hopes and dreams like his favorite book and was building her a terrace, for God's sakes, the terrace she had dreamed about since she was a little girl and would now get to have with Jim, the love of her life…

When they finally broke apart, he had set her feet back on the ground, and both of them were smiling at each other and giggling like idiots.

"I'll take that as a yes," Jim said.

And hand in hand, they walked back into the house as Jim told Pam the logistics of building a terrace and they discussed paint colors and garage renovations and which bedroom they _would_ sleep in, exactly, and Pam, passing the living room and Bobo, wondered why she had ever thought anything was wrong with shag carpets and clown paintings.


End file.
